Run, Mikasa
by TennisWriter456
Summary: If they take you from me, I will bring you back. If they try to hurt you, I will protect you. Wherever you go, I will go. If you are here, I will stay here. If you are there, I will run there. And I will keep running until they give you back to me.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi lovely people!**

**so this weekend I binge-watched the entire first season of Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) and DAYUM IS THAT SHOW AMAZE BALLS. I'm on an Attack on Titan high now and I wanted to write this because Mikasa and Eren's relationship is unbelievably special and I really ship it very hard yes. **

**She's like my favorite person ever by the way like zomg can i be her Mikasa Ackerman's number one fan here**

**anywho it's just a few blurbs, really short. the only reason I'm splitting it up into three parts rather than just one is so that it doesn't get confusing :) **

**Reviews greatly appreciated! **

**enjoyyyyy!**

**xoxo**

* * *

1

Give him.

Give him back.

_Give him back to me._

* * *

I'm running. Through the streets of my town. My feet are bare, the soles crushed on the rough cobblestone. I feel the pain, but I ignore it. I keep running. There are so many people all around me. I try to push past them, try to keep running, try to keep the blood oozing from the cuts on my feet. My chest hurts and I can't breathe. People keep shoving me, spitting on me as I try to run, yelling names at my back. I look down and can see my hair blowing around me. My dress billowing around my ankles. My breath falling into the folds of my scarf. I'm little and I'm strong, but not for all these people. There are so many of them. I start saying Excuse me over and over again so that I can get through. I just keep running.

There is a sound in the back of my head that's making me run.

_Keep running._

It's a loud pounding sound. Rhythmic, monotonous pounding. Boom boom boom. Just like that. Again and again and again, and I make sure that when I run, my steps don't fall into that same rhythm. The pounding is a sound I recognize. The sound of flesh against flesh, a harsh slapping. It's a sound anybody could recognize. But nobody else can hear it. Only me. That's why I'm the only one running.

I fall to the ground when somebody pushes me and I scrape my lip. My tiny body trembles with the blow, my hands burn, my eyes sting. But I struggle to my feet and keep running. I'm going up a hill now. Up stairs that I could walk with my eyes closed. Up, up, up. I trip, stumble, feel the earth rushing to meet me as I defy the obstacles it places before me and continue to run. I can hardly breathe now. I've never felt this kind of pain in my chest. As if my lungs have become too large and need to burst from my ribcage—and my heart too fast. My legs ache with each step, my arms dangle, my body starts to crumble. But I need to keep running.

_Run._

The pounding sound is getting louder.

_Run!_

I turn the corner and now the pounding sound is right there.

_RUN!_

A fist, flying, again and again and again. Between those green (or blue?) eyes, up into that stomach, across those bruised cheeks. I scream, but I've been running for so long that I have no voice. I try to stop that fist because I know I'm strong enough—stronger than he is—but I can't because I'm too exhausted. I fall to my knees and keep screaming silently while the blows keep going and then I say, Give him back to me_._

* * *

Give him.

Give him back.

_Give him back to me._

* * *

I open my eyes. I stare at the ceiling for a few moments and let my eyes adjust to the darkness. I look around. Everybody is asleep, and here I am. Awakening from a dream that I have had so many times. Always in the same place, doing the same thing, feeling the same pain. A ten year-old me, running to save him. Just like I always used to. But for some reason, in my dream, I can't. And every night I have to relive the torture of watching him get hurt and falling to my knees to beg.

But only in my dreams, I tell myself. I get out of bed and put on a jacket over my nightdress. I also grab the knife that I keep under my pillow. It's past curfew, but I don't want to go back to sleep. I can't relive that anymore. I need reality to cool me, to remind me that that will never happen. I will never fall to my knees and beg. I will take what I must and do what I must and I will succeed.

I step out into the cold night air and wrap my jacket more tightly around myself. Everything is so quiet. Only a few hours ago, the camp was alive with the jeers and sneers and laughter of the cadets. Celebrating their newfound niche here. But it's awfully dark now, in an empty way. There are no stars and the moon is hidden by a cloak of thin gray clouds. I shiver and realize that I'm barefoot. I check the soles of my feet—there's no blood. Only dirt from the path I walk. I look to my right and see the cabin. The one where he sleeps. I just walk past it. I know he wouldn't mind if I woke him up. The worst he'll do is berate me for treating him like a child, and I'm used to that. But I don't want to see him having nightmares anymore. I can always tell when he has them because he mumbles in his sleep. _Mother, mother, mother._ And sometimes he moves in desperate, trembling movements. I don't want to see it tonight.

In my bare feet and thin nightdress and hidden knife, I walk to the edge of a small pond on the outskirts of the camp. Nobody has seen me yet. I blend into the darkness well, move silently and swiftly, with nothing but the shadows to prove that I was ever there. I sit down on the edge of the pond and stare down at my reflection. I feel so much older than I look. There should be wrinkles around my eyes, a sag in my skin, age spots and bags. But everything looks so smooth, so deceiving. My reflection isn't the only one that I see. His is right next to mine. Of course he's not smiling. He's frowning, his brow furrowed, the skin on his nose scrunched up the way it always does. Sometimes his eyes look more blue and sometimes more green, but since it's just a reflection, I can't tell right now.

I throw a pebble into the water and watch our faces distort in the ripples, and then watch his fade completely. I'm alone again. I reach up and run my fingers through my hair. Dark, black, straight and thick. Mother always said I had the hair of my ancestors, could give it to my own children. It's tangled, so I start to undo the tangles. One at a time, letting my reflection straighten out again, knowing that nobody will find me. I can't even hear my own breathing.

When all of the tangles are gone, I bring the knife out into the open. It glistens, flashes, sparkles with the remnants of the blood I've washed from it so many times. I dip it into the pond, all the way up to my wrist. The water is cold, cold, cold. Then I take the knife back out and grab my hair and cut it.

You have pretty black hair, that boy said to me earlier.

And then, You should cut it.

I let the clumps of my pretty black hair fall into the pond.

A cruel world, Mother.


	2. Chapter 2

2

Give him.

Give him back.

_Give him back to me._

* * *

I'm running. On the rooftops of the decimated city. I'm no longer wearing my dress. I'm wearing my uniform. But my feet are still bare, bootless, vulnerable and bloodied. My scarf is still wrapped securely around my neck, billowing and as red as the trail of blood I leave on the rooftops as I run. Jump from one to another, feel the cracking in my knees but keep running. There is something in the air. I don't know what it is, and I can't see it, and if I reach out I can't grab it. But I feel it pelting me as I run. On every inch of skin, through my clothes, pelting me. Slow me down, like wind with claws scratching at my face. I can hear the wind, too. It whistles in my ear so loudly that I feel pain in my mind. But I can't stop. I just keep running.

There is a sound in the back of my head that's making me run.

_Keep running. _

It's the sound of footfalls. Heavy, dramatic, deliberate footfalls. Not the kind you would hear from someone meandering, someone lost, someone wandering these deserted streets. The kind of someone walking to a goal, reaching out to grab it and stepping forward, forward, forward toward it. One footfall after another, rhythmic and monotonous. Boom boom boom. I look around to see if anybody else can hear it, but there is nobody else. I see nobody. Only deserted, crumbling rooftops, upon which I run. Even as the debris pushes up into my skin, from the soles of my feet and between my toes. Even as my knees grow weaker, and I open my mouth to breathe but feel the invisible wind scratch my teeth.

I jump from one rooftop, but I am tired. I slip. I flail in the air, try to use my maneuvering device. It latches onto the gutter of the house and swings me forward, but I collide with the corner of the roof, square in the stomach. I grasp for the bricks of the roof and feel blood beneath my fingernails, coughing and coughing and coughing because my stomach has nearly been sliced in half. My legs dangle and flail, weak. Like a fish out of water. But I claw, claw until I feel the rawness of my fingers, and then I am up on the roof. Panting, trying to find my breath. My body is crippling. But I can't stop now. I have to keep running.

_Run. _

The footfalls are getting louder.

_Run! _

I jump onto one more roof and now the footfalls are right there.

_RUN!_

A monster, rearing its ugly head and baring its square teeth. It is smiling. I cry out to it but it ignores me, doesn't hear me. My voice disappeared long ago. It is walking, walking toward another house. Its hand reaches out to grab him, lying bloodied and immobile on that roof. But his blue (or green?) eyes are wide open in terror. I cry out again, only for the wind to steal my words. The monster's hand grabs him. I get out my blades and run to attack, because I know that I can save him. I'm so much stronger than that monster is. Stronger than he is, too. But when I jump, I have no energy. My maneuvering device doesn't work. I fall, slowly, can see my scarf billowing above me. The monster opens its mouth and places him on its tongue. I keep falling silently and it closes its mouth and I say, Give him back to me.

* * *

Give him.

Give him back.

_Give him back to me._

* * *

I open my eyes. And I realize that my dream wasn't a dream, but a single moment. I am standing on a roof in the same decimated city as that my dreams, in my uniform, with my red scarf wrapped securely around my neck. But I am wearing shoes. And when I tap my maneuvering device, it is working. I hear someone say my name and glance over, but I say nothing. I keep my mouth closed and straight, my eyes dark, my heart heavy. I am standing in the city that has destroyed everything for me, fighting back every terrible emotion that I have ever felt. He says my name and then he says, Look.

I look out from the rooftop and see a monster, bigger than the rest. The little ones have attacked it. And I have watched because there is nothing else to be done. Watched as my heart breaks, moment after my moment and I think in my head, Give him back to me. But I look, just as he told me to. The giant monster lets out a roar, so loud it makes the houses quake, and it falls. Everything shakes and I reach out my arms to steady myself, though I can't see why. There is no why anymore. There is no answer—there is no question to be answered. I don't know why I steadied myself. Why I didn't just let myself fall. As that monster did.

The monster begins to smoke and he says again, _Look!_

I look but only because there is no reason not to. There is no reason for anything anymore, so I look. My body and mind and soul drained. The monster smokes and disintegrates, like a cigarette. I can hear it hissing in the air. Like the wind of my dream, hissing in my ears and making my brain bleed. But as the smoke clears and the body melts, I spot something there in the debris. _Look, look! Hey, look!_

A body. A human body. The muscles of the monster weaken and the person inside sits up, surrounded by the smoke and the light and looking more like an angel than anything I have ever seen. Face upturned, eyes closed, sacrificial and beautiful.

I scream his name and jump into the air, activating my maneuvering device. I hear someone else calling mine, telling me not to, but I ignore him. I just go down there, swinging and swinging until I am there in the corpse of that monster and he is right there in front of me. I scream his name again and feel tears on my eyes. I put my hands on his shoulders and bring him down to face me. Eyes still closed—so I can't see if they are blue or green today. My heart stops, my stomach stops, my blood stops. Everything stops and I open my mouth to speak, but I croak. I can say nothing. I wrap my arms around him and press my cheek to his chest and I open my mouth and a sob comes out. Because I can hear a heartbeat, loud and clear against my ear.

I squeeze harder and can just barely feel his breath on the top of my head. The tears flow harder, like rivers from my wide and bloodshot eyes. There we are, surrounded by the smoke in the body of a disintegrating monster. I try to say his name again but only sob. I can feel something again. I can feel why I steadied myself, can ask questions that need answers, can feel a purpose and a reason for every move I make. I sit and cry and I hug him and I think You almost died You almost left me I almost lost everything.

I bury my face in his chest and let the tears fall.

Remember him saying, I don't need protection.

And then, Where you go I go.

A cruel world, Mother. But a beautiful world.

* * *

**My favorite scene of the entire show WOW THE FEELS **


	3. Chapter 3

3

Give him.

Give him back.

_Give him back to me._

* * *

I'm running. Across the ground of a thick, dense, dark forest. Cloaked in leaves so plentiful there's no sun. Not even a ray can get through. It's so dark. I'm wearing my uniform, my scarf, can feel my maneuvering device. But I'm barefoot. The leaves and stones and fallen branches stab into the soles of my feet. They became raw and red as I dart among the trees, feel the dew dripping down on me, and keep running. My breathing is hoarse and there's almost no air to breathe. My stomach hurts—so crippling that I crouch over as I run. When I open my mouth I vomit. My knees buckle with each step and I bump into the trees and they laugh at me while I run. Seeing nothing but their silhouettes and accompanied by nobody but my invisible shadows. They bring their branches down to scratch my face and my arms and my chest while I run. Trying to stop me, to slow me down. But I can't stop. I just keep running.

There is a sound in the back of my head that's making me run.

_Keep running. _

It's a scream. A loud, primal scream that shakes the very earth upon which I stand. It reverberates among the trees, echoes in my mind, makes me cringe and bare my teeth and feel pain from the sound because it makes my bones rattle. I jump into the air and activate my maneuvering device. It latches onto those taunting trees and I start swinging. Tree to tree, flipping through the air. But I'm not light and swift. I feel so heavy. Each turn feels like a break in my spine. When my device cuts into a tree and pulls me, my neck arches back and my eyes go wide and my joints cry out. I can't breathe anymore because it hurts the bones of my ribcage. The blood from my feet drips down onto the forest floor as I rush through the forest. Tree to tree to tree, up and up, swing swing swing. That scream pushing me forward.

I send my maneuvering device to a tree, but I miss. I fly forward and tumble down to the forest floor, but do not scream. I cannot let his scream die out. I fall and fall, until my chest hits the ground and I feel my jawbone crumble. There is no breath left within me, and my brain seeps out from my deafened ears, and I feel I must never move again. But I know that I must. I stand up and activate my maneuvering device and keep going through the forest, toward that scream. I have to keep running.

_Run. _

The scream is getting louder.

_Run! _

I swing to one more tree and now the scream are right there.

_RUN!_

That monster is there. His monster. It is up against a tree, its arms stretched out and its face upturned. It has opened its ugly mouth, filled with the pointed teeth. It is screaming. And there, pinning his monster to the tree, is another monster. A female monster with blonde hair and familiar blue eyes. She has opened her mouth and is coming closer to his monster. I open my mouth to scream for her to stop, to scream his name, to scream anything. But I have nothing left inside me. I swing into a tree but my maneuvering device gets tangled and I am stuck, my legs bent out of shape, dangling upside down and watching. His green (or blue?) eyes flash and she bites into his head and the scream dies out while I dangle silently and say, Give him back to me.

* * *

Give him.

Give him back.

_Give him back to me._

* * *

I open my eyes. It was a single blink. Those images flood away as I close my eyes and open them again, realizing my dream was but a single moment. I am in my uniform, wearing my red scarf and boots, and am hanging from a tree with my maneuvering devices. I am in the same dark, dense forest, with no light and the laughing trees. And there in front of me, he stares. Blankly, up, down, straight. I'm not sure. I can only sit and stare at him. Just as blankly. His eyes are so wide, so dead. And she is there, with her muscles rippling and her matted blonde hair reeking of death. Her mouth is open and she's leaning down, down, to where he sits stuck in that monster body. Staring. I scream, NO, NO YOU CAN'T. She eats him. I ask her to give him back. I tell her that she can't have him.

_GIVE HIM BACK TO ME!_

* * *

Give him back to me.

Give Eren back to me.

* * *

I open my eyes again. I blink a few times and see a window, and sunlight rushing through it. I am sitting in a chair, leaning forward against a bed. My hair has been flattened to my face on one side, and I feel drool on the corner of my mouth. But I don't move. I'm wearing a white shirt and black pants—not my uniform. But I'm wearing the red scarf.

Always the red scarf.

I blink again and remember where I am. In the capital. The destroyed city. Destruction unprecedented. There is nobody else around. But then I move my fingers and I feel them wrapped around something. It is warm and inviting and familiar, makes me so happy. I squeeze it harder. Then I look up and see that it's his hand. He is sleeping in the bed, so very peaceful. His body rising and falling with his even breaths. His lips slightly parted, his eyelids fluttering in his slumber. There's that key around his neck, and gauze wrapped around his head. Tears fall from my eyes as I sit up and smile and squeeze his hand harder. With my other hand, I reach up and stroke his bruised cheeks, touch his chapped lips. I wipe the stray pieces of hair from his forehead and his face and pray that he's not having nightmares. Not like the ones I have.

I try not to, but I begin to sob. I'm so frightened. I've seen him taken away from me so many times, screamed Give him back too many times. Failed too many times. I hold his hand in both of mine and bring it up to my lips, and kiss his fingers. My tears flow onto his skin. I kiss them over and over, because I want to remember this. He is alive and he is here and I am alive and I am here. We are together. I bite my lip to hold back the sobs and bend forward, lean my head against his chest. Just like that time. Because I want to hear his heartbeat.

It is there, strong and willful and determined. Just like he is. Then, while I calm down and let the tears flow silently against his chest, I feel something on my fingers. He squeezes my hand back, squeezes ever so slightly. I heave a sigh and listen to his heartbeat.

I tell him that I love him.

I love you.

That if anybody tries to take him away, I will bring him back.

I will bring you back.

Back to this cruel, beautiful world.


End file.
